But the fruit of the Spirit is … faithfulness.  (Galations 5:25-26).  Would it surprise you to know that the actual Greek word used here is, simply, “faith”?  It surprised me, at first.

So much can be said about faith.  But, many months ago, as the seed of this Bible study was growing in my heart, I read the following explanation of Psalm 131.

Go ahead and read Psalm 131.

Now, since having children, I never understood the part about cultivating my soul like a weaned child.  A nursing child is nearly always comforted by her mother.   Weary, nursing mama friends, is that not right?  Weary, papas of nursing babies — isn’t that true?  Here your tired baby fussy.  Here your hungry baby is fussy.  No amount of gentle bouncing or distractions will comfort like mama’s breast.  Usually it’s instant contentedness.

Should not the Psalmist have said my soul is like a nursing infant with the Lord?

Eugene Peterson explains:

Hesed is Hebrew for “faithful love.”  It is God’s faithfulness in freely offering love and maintaining that love in the face of wandering hearts and even rejection – God’s love is available to all, whether they have turned away from His call before or not.

Psalm 131 (Message translation) GOD, I’m not trying to rule the roost, I don’t want to be king of the mountain.  I haven’t meddled where I have no business or fantasized grandiose plans.  I’ve kept my feet on the ground, I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.  Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.  Wait, Israel, for GOD.  Wait with hope.  Hope now; hope always!

Christian faith is not neurotic dependency but childlike trust.  We do not have a God who forever indulges our whims but a God whom we trust with our destinies.  The Christian is not a naive, innocent infant who has no identity apart from a feeling of being comforted and protected and catered to but a person who has discovered an identity given by God which can be enjoyed best and fully in voluntary trust in God.  We do not cling to God desperately out of fear and the panic of insecurity; we come to him freely in faith and love.

The transition from a sucking infant to a weaned child, from squalling baby to quiet son or daughter, is not smooth.  It is stormy and noisy.  It is no easy thing to quiet yourself: sooner may we calm the sea or rule the wind or tame a tiger than quiet ourselves.  It is pitched battle.  The baby is denied expected comfort and flied into rages or sinks into sulks.  There are sobs and struggles.  The infant is facing its first great sorrow and it is in sore distress.

Many who have traveled this way of faith have described the transition from an infantile faith that grabs at God out of desperation to a mature faith that responds to God out of love, “like a baby content in its mother’s arms.”  Often our conscious Christian lives do not begin at points of desperation, and God, of course, does not refuse to meet our needs.  Heavenly comforts break through our despair and persuade us that “all will be well and all manner of things will be well.”  The early stages of Christian belief are not infrequently marked with miraculous signs and exhilaration of spirit.  But as discipleship continues, the sensible comforts gradually disappear.  For God does not want us neurotically dependent on him but willingly trustful in him.  And so he weans us.  The period of infancy will not be sentimentally extended beyond what is necessary.  The time of weaning is very often noisy and marked by misunderstandings: I no longer feel like I did when I was first a Christian.  Does that mean I am no longer a Christian?  Has God abandoned me?  Have I done something terribly wrong? // The answer is neither.  God hasn’t abandoned you and you haven’t done anything wrong.  You are being weaned.  The apron strings have been cut.

*** … what Psalm 131 nurtures [is] a quality of calm confidence and quiet strength that knows the difference between unruly arrogance and faithful aspiration, knows how to discriminate between infantile dependency and childlike trust, and chooses to aspire and to trust –and to sing, “I’ve kept my feet on the ground, I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.  Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.  (Peterson, A Long  Obedience in the Same Direction, pp. 155-56, 158)

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phil. 1:6).  Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.  (Phil. 2:12-13). Ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.  Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to those who ask him, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?  (Matt. 7:7-12).  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.  (Matt. 7:19).  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has gone, the new has come.  (2 Cor. 5:17).

1. In Phillipians 1:6, who began the good work in us and who will carry it on?

2. What good work has God begun in your life?

3. In Phil. 2:12-13, what are we to do and what does God do?

4. That good work God has begun in you – are you working with Him in it – or, perhaps waiting for Him to do it all – or maybe trying to force the good fruit in your own strength?

5. Are you in a place where you can honestly ask God to make you a good tree that bears good fruit?  Why/why not?

Today, another lectio divino.

Let your imagination fill in the blanks as you would experience if you were physically there: imagine what the weather was like?  Imagine the smells – food,  wine.  Listen with your ears – was there a chatter of people talking around the table?  See with your eyes, was it dimly lit inside, growing dark outside with a fire burning in a hearth?

Keeping these things in mind, turn to Matthew 26:6-13 – read it, or even listen to it on a Bible app. 
What did God impress upon you?

Look again at verse 10 – “Why are you bothering this woman?”  Jesus asks in response to the disciples indignation.  “She has done a beautiful thing to me.”  “Beautiful” is what my version says.  But, according to Strong’s Concordance, that word is “agathos” or “good.”  Beauty = good.

What beauty have you experienced recently?

Today, another lectio divino.  Jesus is traveling through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem – a journey of about 15 miles.  He had just miraculously healed a blind man and the crowd grew in size and fervor. 

Now, open up your Bible to Luke 19:1-10 – imagining the sights, smells, sounds – put yourself in the scene.

What did the Spirit impress upon you?

Love does not illustrate, it simply is the goodness beyond the goodness of the scribes and Pharisees.  All the illustrations [Jesus] has given in the various situations discussed in 5:20-48 are illustrations of it.  In it we achieve living union with, have fully entered into, the kingdom of the heavens.  (Willard, The Divine Conspiracy p. 181).

The rest of this week is going to be a little different.  While I was praying about how to study goodness, I think God impressed upon me that doing a word-study on “goodness” was not what He had in mind for this week.  What I felt prompted to do was have us look more deeply at a few instances from Jesus’ life here on earth.

Jesus is goodness incarnate, what better way to study goodness than to become more familiar with Him?

Remember lectio divino?  While I’m not entirely sure of the “right” way to practice lecio divino, my “version” of it is to settle yourself in a comfortable position, take a few deep breaths and ask the Holy Spirit to come, awaken your soul to truth in the scripture.  Then, as you prepare to read the passage, use all your senses.  Let your imagination fill in the blanks as you would experience if you were physically there: imagine was the weather hot?  Imagine the smells – dusty perhaps on the road, mingled with animals?  Listen with your ears – was there a chatter of people talking as they traveled, the sound of wheels creaking on a donkey drawn cart?  See with your eyes, look at the scene and the people around.

We are going to look at a story from Luke 17:11-19.  Before we read it, though, let’s set the stage even more.

The Levitical law prohibited a person with an infectious skin disease – who had been declared “unclean” by the priest – to live within the general community.  That person had to wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out “unclean!  Unclean!”  As long as the infectious disease lasted, the person had to live alone,  outside the camp.  (Leviticus 13:9-1, 45).

If you don’t know much about leprosy, feel free to look it up on the internet.  My “internet research” shows that it is a skin condition that causes white sores on the body that can be quite painful – the pain can include nerve pain, a leper may be unable to feel their extremities, and have a  disfigured face (among other things).  It is contagious, although the incubation period can be a period of years.
Now, come to the scene from Jesus’ life.  In Luke 17:11-19.  He is traveling along the road when the lepers appear to Him.  Employing lectio divino, read through the scene.

What did the Spirit impress upon you?

But the fruit of the Spirit is … goodness.
 
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. – God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.  (Genesis 1:1-4, 31).  [L]ive a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.  Nor should there be foolish talk or coarse joking which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. – For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.  (Eph. 5:1-4, 8-10).  Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.  (Phil. 1:6). 

1. What kinds of things does the world say are “good”? 

2. In Genesis, what did God call good (feel free to also look over the entirety of chapter 1)?

3. According to the Ephesians verses, what are we now in the Lord and how are we to live because of that?

4. According to Philippians, what has God begun in us?

When I began to turn “kindness” over in my head, it almost always turned into gentleness.  A kind word.  Opposite of a mean, sharp or rough one.  A soft word.
 
I remembered reading a blog post on kindness a while back.  In it the author (Emily P. Freeman) posited that kind is not nice.  Nice is an ooey, gooey term that – so she and the author a book she was reading and promoting – denotes a soft exterior and soft interior.   That is, “nice” has no conviction or character.  “Kind” on the other hand is soft on the exterior and with a firm center.  Aggression of course, is a hard exterior and firm center.   

“If you have hard edges and firm center, that’s called aggression.  If you have soft edges and spongey center, that’s called niceness.”  She writes.  The way of kindness, she says, is this:  “Rather than the harshness of firm centers and hard edges, and rather than the weakness of spongy centers and soft edges, why don’t we start with kindness? Kindness is the way of firm centers and soft edges . . . It’s time for followers of Jesus to rediscover the power of kindness.” (Barry H. Corey, Love Kindness).

I like this idea.  I generally like what Emily has to say and think she’s right on.  I mean, if God is kind, kind cannot be the opposite of truth or character.  Kindness is not passivity.  But, being the egg-head I am, since her post didn’t contain any Bible references, I don’t know if it’s right.  It’s also certainly not something I’m comfortable completely adhering to in a Bible study that I’m writing. 
I looked up the guy with the book (the book itself probably is loaded with Bible references and support for it’s thesis) – it looks totally interesting and worth a read, but I didn’t have time to do that right now.

So, once again I turned to my old King James Strong’s Concordance.  When I looked up “kindness,” (the word that appears in my NIV) our verses did not make an appearance.  Pull up blueletterbible.org yourself and looked up Galations 5:22-23 in the King James.  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”  Which KJV word is translated “kindness” in the NIV?  “Gentleness.”  In the Greek it’s chrestotes – usefulness, excellence in character or demeanor:  –gentleness, good (-ness), kindness.” 

Meanwhile, I have recently been reminded of that slogan from a few decades back, “practice random acts of kindness and senseless  acts of beauty.”  While the idea of practicing kindness is wonderful – the slogan itself is actually silly: as Dallas Willard asked, how can one practice something random?  (Although off-topic, he also points out that no act of beauty is senseless because the beautiful is never absurd.).  Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely agree that we need more kindness in our world.  Kindness is beautiful.  But, we need to cultivate kindness — not randomly act kind.  We need to purposefully understand the kindness of the Lord to encourage kindness to grow and spread in our lives.
This, though, strays from a Bible study about kindness and why it is also translated as gentleness, usefulness and excellence in character or demeanor.  To that, I have no answer and I’m still synthesizing, praying and turning it over in my mind.

So, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit how I’ve struggled with kindness.  I don’t have anything wrapped up for you to summarize it.  My pastor gave a sermon many years ago about the fruit of the Spirit.  He preached that all the virtues are contained in the single virtue: love.  The virtues, he said, all build upon one another and they all are a part of what makes up love.  At the time, I thought this was a bit of a cop-out.  Felt cheated in the sermon, maybe “c’mon!  We could hear a few practical points about all of the fruit of the Spirit…”  Now, I’m beginning to see that he’s right.  Love is kind.  God’s loving kindness has been lavished on us.  Kindness is a component of love.

So, there are my bits and pieces of thought about kindness.  I would have included more Biblical references to kindness – likely from the Old Testament – but when I strayed into the “word” study, it didn’t feel quite right to throw up various verses that aren’t either the same vein or that haven’t been impressed upon me by the Spirit.

But, perhaps the Lord has impressed upon you something about His kindness recently.  I would truly enjoy hearing about it, if so, please share!

Forget not all His benefits. Psalm 103:2

It is a delightful and profitable occupation to mark the hand of God in the lives of ancient saints, and to observe His goodness in delivering them, His mercy in pardoning them, and His faithfulness in keeping His covenant with them. But would it not be even more interesting and profitable for us to remark the hand of God in our own lives? Ought we not to look upon our own history as being at least as full of God, as full of His goodness and of His truth, as much a proof of His faithfulness and veracity, as the lives of any of the saints who have gone before? We do our Lord an injustice when we suppose that He wrought all His mighty acts, and showed Himself strong for those in the early time, but doth not perform wonders or lay bare His arm for the saints who are now upon the earth. Let us review our own lives. Surely in these we may discover some happy incidents, refreshing to ourselves and glorifying to our God. Have you had no deliverances? Have you passed through no rivers, supported by the divine presence? Have you walked through no fires unharmed? Have you had no manifestations? Have you had no choice favours? The God who gave Solomon the desire of his heart, hath He never listened to you and answered your requests? That God of lavish bounty of whom David sang, “Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things,” hath He never satiated you with fatness? Have you never been made to lie down in green pastures? Have you never been led by the still waters? Surely the goodness of God has been the same to us as to the saints of old. Let us, then, weave His mercies into a song. Let us take the pure gold of thankfulness, and the jewels of praise and make them into another crown for the head of Jesus. Let our souls give forth music as sweet and as exhilarating as came from David’s harp, while we praise the Lord whose mercy endureth for ever. (CH Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Morning July 8).

I hesitated to include another devotional from Spurgeon today.  But, as I pondered kindness, this devotional was impressed upon my heart.  And, as I worked through another Bible study the next morning, it made the same plea – remember the kindnesses of the Lord in your life, specific instances of it. 

There are many people throughout Biblical history who prayed in such a way.  First, they reminded themselves about God’s mighty and kind acts toward them before they turned their prayers and petitions to their current circumstances. Should we not do the same?

If you have time and the Spirit prompts you – dive into Isaiah 63:11-14, Exodus 33:1-15 or Numbers 14:13-19, 2 Chronicles 20:6-12; Daniel 9:15-19; Ezra 9:6-15 or Nehemiah 1:5-11.  Experience the way the saints prayed to God, clinging to His mighty acts and kindness to them. 

Now, turn to your own life: where have you experienced His kindnesses?  Let your mind go far and wide.  Remembering these tender kindnesses, remember that God’s character does not change.  He is loving and kind.  And, He desires to bring Himself glory through your circumstances.  Will you bring your current challenges before Him?

But the fruit of the Spirit is … kindness. (Gal. 5:25).  Love is … kind.  (1 Cor. 13:4).

The kindness and love of God our Saviour. Titus 3:4

How sweet it is to behold the Saviour communing with His own beloved people! There can be nothing more delightful than, by the Divine Spirit, to be led into this fertile field of delight. Let the mind for an instant consider the history of the Redeemer’s love, and a thousand enchanting acts of affection will suggest themselves, all of which have had for their design the weaving of the heart into Christ, and the intertwisting of the thoughts and emotions of the renewed soul with the mind of Jesus. When we meditate upon this amazing love, and behold the all-glorious Kinsman of the Church endowing her with all His ancient wealth, our souls may well faint for joy. Who is he that can endure such a weight of love? That partial sense of it which the Holy Spirit is sometimes pleased to afford, is more than the soul can contain; how transporting must be a complete view of it! When the soul shall have understanding to discern all the Saviour’s gifts, wisdom wherewith to estimate them, and time in which to meditate upon them, such as the world to come will afford us, we shall then commune with Jesus in a nearer manner than at present. But who can imagine the sweetness of such fellowship? It must be one of the things which have not entered into the heart of man, but which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Oh, to burst open the door of our Joseph’s granaries, and see the plenty which He hath stored up for us! This will overwhelm us with love. By faith we see, as in a glass darkly, the reflected image of His unbounded treasures, but when we shall actually see the heavenly things themselves, with our own eyes, how deep will be the stream of fellowship in which our soul shall bathe itself! Till then our loudest sonnets shall be reserved for our loving benefactor, Jesus Christ our Lord, whose love to us is wonderful, passing the love of women.  (CH Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Morning June 4, 2017).